Olga did not answer. She stood staring into the woman’s face and suddenly her own whitened and her eyes widened with dismay.
“You?” she said under her breath. “You!”
“Yes, I—Sonia. Aren’t you going to let me in?”
For an instant Olga hesitated, then she stood aside, but in that moment all the happy hopefulness seemed to melt out of her heart. It was as if a black shadow of disaster had entered the quiet room at the heels of the draggled woman and her child.
“This is a warm welcome, I must say, to your own sister,” Sonia said in a querulous tone, as she dropped into the easiest chair and laid the child across her knees. It made no sound, but lay as it was placed, its eyes half closed and its tiny face pinched and colourless.
“I—I can’t realise that it is really—you,” Olga said. “Where did you come from, and how did you find me?”
“I came from—many places. As to finding you—that was easy. You are not so far from the old neighbourhood where I left you.”
“Yes—you left me,” Olga echoed slowly, her face dark with the old sombre gloom. “You left me, a child of thirteen, with no money, and mother—dying!”
“I suppose it was rather hard on you, but you were always a plucky one, and I knew well enough you would pull through somehow. As to mother, of course I didn’t know—she’d been ailing so long,” Sonia defended herself, “and Dick wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. I had to go with him.”
Olga was silent, but in her heart a fierce battle was raging. She knew her sister—knew her selfish disregard of the rights or wishes of others, and she realised that much might depend on what was said now.